Yau Lie's page

Focus/Resonant Powers (Su): At 1st level, an occultist learns the base focus power from both of his two implement schools (see Implements below) and can select one more focus power from the list of those available to him through those schools. Whenever the occultist learns a new implement school, he gains the base power of that school. In addition, at 3rd level and every 2 levels thereafter, he learns a new focus power selected from the options granted by all of the implement schools he knows. The occultist can use focus powers only by expending mental focus (see Mental Focus on page 48). Unless otherwise noted, the DC for any saving throw against a focus power equals 10 + 1/2 the occultist’s level + the occultist’s Intelligence modifier. The occultist can’t select a focus power more than once. Some focus powers require him to reach a specific occultist level before he can choose them.

Combat Trick (Ex): As a move action, you can expend 3 points of mental focus to gain a single combat feat for which you qualify. This benefit lasts for 1 minute.

Counterstrike (Ex): As an immediate action when you are damaged by a melee attack, you can expend 1 point of mental focus to immediately make a single attack at your highest base attack bonus against the creature that hit you, provided that you threaten that creature. If the attack hits, you gain a bonus on the damage roll equal to 1/3 your occultist level (rounded down, minimum +1). This attack counts as an attack of opportunity.

Energy Shield (Sp): As a swift action, you can expend 1 point of mental focus to surround yourself with a shield that protects you from energy damage. Whenever you take acid, cold, electricity, or fire damage, the shield absorbs the damage (as protection from energy). The energy shield can absorb up to 5 points of energy damage per occultist level you possess. This shield lasts for 1 minute or until its power is exhausted. Its effect doesn’t stack with itself, with protection from energy, or with resist energy. You can activate the energy shield as an immediate action by expending 2 points of mental focus instead of 1. You must be at least 3rd level to select this focus power.

Legacy Weapon (Su): As a standard action, you can expend 1 point of mental focus and touch a weapon to grant it an enhancement bonus. The bonus is equal to 1 + 1 for every 6 occultist levels you possess (to a maximum of +4 at 18th level). Enhancement bonuses gained by this ability stack with those of the weapon, to a maximum of +5. You can also imbue the weapon with any one weapon special ability with an equivalent enhancement bonus less than or equal to your maximum bonus by reducing the granted enhancement bonus by the appropriate amount. The item must have an enhancement bonus of at least +1 (from the item itself or from legacy weapon) to gain a weapon special ability. In either case, these bonuses last for 1 minute.

Martial Skill (Ex): When wielding the weapon used as the panoply’s associated implement, you treat your base attack bonus as though it were 1 point higher for every 4 points of total mental focus invested in all of the associated implements, to a maximum base attack bonus equal to your occultist level. This increase can grant you additional attacks when using the full attack action (for example, a 12th-level occultist with 12 points of mental focus invested among the associated implements would be treated as having a base attack bonus of +11, with iterative attacks at a base attack bonus of +6 and +1).

Mind Barrier (Sp): As a swift action, you can expend 1 point of mental focus to create a shield of mental energy around you that protects you from harm. The shield prevents a total of 2 points of damage per occultist level you possess. It lasts until the start of your next turn or until exhausted. For example, if you are 5th level, the mind barrier protects you from 10 points of damage; if you are hit by an attack that would deal 12 points of damage, the mind barrier is exhausted and you take 2 points of damage. You can activate this ability as an immediate action, but doing so costs 2 points of mental focus instead of 1.

Mind Fear (Sp): As a standard action, you can expend 1 point of mental focus to cause a living creature to succumb to fear. The target must be within 30 feet of you, and it can attempt a Will saving throw to negate the effect. If the target fails the save and has a number of Hit Dice less than or equal to yours, it is frightened for 1d4 rounds. If the target fails the saving throw and has a number of Hit Dice greater than yours, it is instead shaken for 1d4 rounds. This is a mind-affecting fear effect.

Physical Enhancement (Su): The implement enhances its bearer’s body. When you invest mental focus in the implement, select a physical ability score. The implement grants a +2 temporary enhancement bonus to that physical ability score for every 3 points of mental focus invested in the implement (to a maximum of +2 at 1st level, plus an additional 2 for every 6 occultist levels you possess). Ability: Strength.

Sudden Speed (Sp): As a swift action, you can expend 1 point of mental focus to grant yourself a burst of speed. This increases your land speed by 30 feet for 1 minute. This ability does not stack with itself.

Warding Talisman (Su): The implement wards against adverse effects. Whoever wears (or holds, for bells) the implement gains a +1 resistance bonus on saving throws for every 2 points of mental focus invested in the implement, to a maximum bonus of 1 + 1 for every 4 occultist levels you possess.

Mental Focus (Su): An occultist can invest a portion of his mental focus into his chosen implements for the day, allowing him to utilize a variety of abilities depending on the implements and the amount of mental focus invested in them. An occultist has a number of points of mental focus equal to his occultist level + his Intelligence modifier; these points refresh each day. He can divide this mental focus between his implements in any way he desires. If an implement is lost or destroyed, the focus invested in it is lost as well, though the occultist still refreshes those points of focus normally.

Magic Item Skill (Ex): At 2nd level, an occultist’s knowledge of magic items grants him a bonus when attempting to use them. He gains a bonus on all Use Magic Device checks equal to 1/2 his occultist level.

Object Reading (Su): At 2nd level, an occultist learns how to read information from items he examines. Examining an item in this way requires him to spend 1 minute handling the item. If the item is a magic item, the occultist learns its properties and command word as if he had successfully examined the item using detect magic and succeeded at a Spellcraft check. This ability does not reveal whether the item is cursed unless the occultist’s class level is equal to or greater than the caster level of the item. If the item has any historical significance, the occultist learns one piece of information about its past (as determined by the GM). Finally, if the item was last used no longer than 1 day ago per the occultist’s class level, the occultist learns one piece of information about the last creature to use the item. This information might be a glimpse of the creature’s appearance, a brief vision of what it saw while using the item, or perhaps its emotional state when it last used the item. The GM determines what information is gained in this way. This functions like the psychometry occult skill unlock (see page 196), but doesn’t require a skill check and can be used at will.

Possessed Possessions (Su): At 2nd level, and every 4 occultist levels thereafter, when the haunt collector chooses an implement school he doesn’t already know, instead of using implements as normal for that school, he can gain access to a haunted implement—a powerful, spirit-possessed item collected during his travels. When he selects a haunted implement, he forsakes the resonant power from the item’s implement group and instead selects a spirit from the medium’s list of spirits, gaining that spirit’s seance boon in place of the resonant power. He can also call upon the implement’s haunting entity as a swift action to temporarily gain bonuses on all checks associated with the selected legendary spirit’s spirit bonus for 1 round. This spirit bonus is equal to 1/2 the amount of mental focus invested in the implement, to a maximum bonus of 1 + 1 for every 4 occultist levels the haunt collector has. He can call upon this spirit bonus a number of times per day equal to the amount of mental focus invested in the implement, though invoking it doesn’t expend any mental focus. Once the spirit type is selected for an implement, it cannot be changed. This ability alters implements.

Necromantic Champion Spirit Bonus: When you channel a champion, your spirit bonus applies on attack rolls, non-spell damage rolls, Strength checks, Strength-based skill checks, and Fortitude saves.

Necromantic Champion Seance Boon: You gain a +2 bonus on all non-spell damage rolls.

Shift Focus (Su): At 4th level, an occultist gains the ability to shift his mental focus from one implement to another, though some of the focus is lost along the way. Shifting mental focus removes a number of points of mental focus from one implement and adds the same number – 1 to another implement; this takes 1 minute of quiet contemplation while touching both implements. The occultist can shift his mental focus only from one implement to another implement; he can’t shift generic focus into an implement. Unlike expending focus normally, this shift can reduce the effect of a resonant power in the implement from which the mental focus was taken. It does not, however, add to the resonant power of the implement to which the focus is added.

Hauntist (Su): At 5th level, a haunt collector with at least one haunted implement gains the medium’s haunt channeler class feature, with an effective medium level equal to his occultist level – 2. This ability replaces aura sight.

Haunt Channeler (Su): At 3rd level, a medium can use his familiarity with spirits to assist him when dealing with haunts. He can always act on the surprise round against a haunt, and his touch funnels a portion of the haunt into himself, dealing 1d6 points of damage to the haunt per 2 medium levels he possesses as if via positive energy and allowing the medium to ask the haunt a single question. The haunt can answer the question however it chooses. Additionally, the medium can forgo his saving throw against a haunt’s effects to funnel the haunt entirely into himself. If he does so, the medium suffers the haunt’s full effect, but the haunt doesn’t affect anyone else (even if it normally would). The haunt then gains control of the medium’s body for 24 hours. Once per minute, the medium can attempt to end this possession early by succeeding at a Will save (DC = 20 + 1/2 the medium’s class level).

Reaping Strike (Su): At 1st level, whenever a mortal usher deals hit point damage by using the attack action, casting a spell that targets only a single creature, or throwing an alchemical item as a standard action (including an alchemist’s bombs), he deals an additional 1d6 points of damage to the target, plus an additional 1d6 points of damage for every 2 additional class levels he has beyond 1st. This damage is positive energy damage if the target is undead, or negative energy damage if the target is living; creatures that are neither living nor dead, such as constructs, are unaffected by this ability.

Vital Strike: At 1st level, a mortal usher gains the Vital Strike feat, and at 6th level he gains the Improved Vital Strike feat, even if he would not normally meet the prerequisites for them. If the mortal usher already has Vital Strike or Improved Vital Strike when he would gain it through this ability, he can immediately swap it for another feat for which he qualified at the level he first took it. For the purposes of qualifying for any feat that includes Vital Strike as a prerequisite, the mortal usher can use his class level in place of his base attack bonus, adding this value to his base attack bonus from any other classes he has as normal.

Traits
Clever Wordplay [Diplomacy] (social): Your cunning and logic are more than a match for another’s confidence and poise. Choose one Charisma-based skill. You attempt checks with that skill using your Intelligence modifier instead of your Charisma modifier.

Darklands Delver [Knowledge (dungeoneering] (region): You are familiar with the byways and passages of Tian Xia’s underworld. You gain a +1 trait bonus on Knowledge (dungeoneering) checks, and a +1 trait bonus on Survival checks made in the Darklands. One of these skills becomes class skill for you.

Oppressive Expectations (drawback): You were raised with the belief that your family was special, and that those of your status always succeed at whatever they do. Due to your concern about upholding the family name and your memories of the consequences for disappointing them (such as violence or unsettling disapproval), you are easily frustrated. When you fail at a skill check, you take a –2 penalty on checks with that skill until you succeed or until you fail at a different skill check, whichever comes first.

Pragmatic Activator (magic): While some figure out how to use magical devices with stubborn resolve, your approach is more pragmatic. You may use your Intelligence modifier when making Use Magic Device checks instead of your Charisma modifier.

Ru-Shi Dhampir Racial Traits

+2 Strength, +2 Intelligence, –2 Dexterity: The ru-shi are dhampirs who descend from the jiang-shi of Tian Xia. They generally lack any interest in physical contact, and their movements are stiff and awkward.

Dhampir: Dhampirs are humanoids with the dhampir subtype.

Medium: Dhampirs are Medium creatures and have no bonuses or penalties due to their size.

Normal Speed: Dhampirs have a base speed of 30 feet.

Senses: Dhampirs get low-light vision and darkvision with a range of 60 feet.

Skilled: Ru-Shi Dhampirs gain a +2 racial bonus on Acrobatics and Knowledge (engineering) checks.

Undead Resistance: Dhampirs gain a +2 racial bonus on saving throws against disease and mind-affecting effects.

Sonic Sensitivity: Ru-shi take a –1 penalty on saves against sonic effects and spells.

Negative Energy Affinity: Though they’re living creatures, dhampirs react to positive and negative energy as if they were undead; positive energy harms them, and negative energy heals them.

Heir to Undying Nobility: Descended from undead nobility, perhaps from Geb, Nidal, or Ustalav, some dhampirs inherit a bit of their ancestors’ ability to control living beings. They can use command and charm person each once per day. This racial trait replaces the spell-like ability racial trait.

Resist Level Drain: A dhampir takes no penalties from energy drain effects, though he can still be killed if he accrues more negative levels then he has Hit Dice. After 24 hours, any negative levels a dhampir takes are removed without the need for an additional saving throw.

Languages: Dhampirs begin play speaking Common. Dhampirs with high Intelligence scores can choose any languages they want (except secret languages, such as Druidic).

Automatic Writing: You can produce mysterious writing that pertains to the immediate future, either under the influence of enigmatic guiding spirits or by unleashing your subconscious intuition.

Check: Once per week, you can spend 1 hour posing questions while your hand unconsciously scribbles messages of varying legibility and accuracy. At the end of this hour, you attempt a Linguistics check to decipher the meanings of these messages. If successful, you gain information as though you had used augury. If you have 10 or more ranks in Linguistics, you can attempt a higher DC check to instead gain information as though you had used divination. The chance of successfully producing coherent or meaningful writing from any of these effects equals 60% plus 5% for every 1 by which your check result exceeds the DC (to a maximum of 90%). You must choose which DC you’ll try to meet before attempting the check. The GM rolls the check and d% roll secretly, so that you can’t tell whether the messages are accurate.

Writing Results Ranks Required DC
As augury spell 1 20
As divination spell 10 30

Action: Automatic writing takes 1 hour.

Try Again: Yes. You can attempt to learn more about a subject, but can still attempt only one check per week.

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Phrenology: You examine the skulls of intelligent creatures to analyze the subjects’ psychological attributes, since the shape of the brain influences the shape of the skull.

Check: Once per day, you can use your fingertips to examine the shape of a creature’s skull. Reading a creature’s skull requires 1 minute of concentration and scrutiny while you physically manipulate the skull. This technique can be used on a willing, helpless, or paralyzed creature, or on decomposed remains (as long as the skull is intact or can be pieced together). This skill can’t be used on creatures without discernible skulls, such as constructs, elementals, oozes, or plants. After the minute is up, the GM attempts a secret Knowledge (arcana) check. The DC is typically modified by the subject’s Hit Dice. With a single check, you determine all the information whose DC you meet. For instance, if you had a result of 22 when examining a creature with 2 HD, you would learn that creature’s race and age, gender, alignment, and class, but not its level or HD.

Task DC
Determine race and age 10
Determine gender 15
Determine alignment 15 + creature’s HD†
Determine class 20 + creature’s HD†
Determine level or HD 25 + creature’s HD†
† A dead creature’s skull uses the HD the creature had when alive.

Action: Reading a creature’s cranium requires 1 minute of uninterrupted study.

Try Again: Yes. Reexamining a skull may provide new insights. You can attempt only one such check per day.

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Hypnotism: You use the power of suggestion and subtle psychic influence to alter a subject’s mind and dredge up repressed memories.

Check: You can use hypnotism once per day. The DC of a Diplomacy check to hypnotize is 20 + the subject’s Will save modifier against mind-affecting enchantment (compulsion) effects. All uses of hypnotism are mind-affecting enchantment (compulsion) effects.

Implant Suggestion: You can implant a suggested course of reasonable action in the mind of a willing creature, along with a defined trigger. To implant a suggestion, you spend 1 minute inducing a trance-like state in the subject, after which you attempt a Diplomacy check. If the check is successful, you implant the course of action, as a suggestion spell with a duration of 10 minutes plus 10 additional minutes for every 1 by which your check result exceeds the DC. If the subject ceases to be willing, it can attempt a Will save once each round to shake off the effects. The save DC is equal to 10 + 1/2 your character level + your Charisma modifier. You can attempt to subtly implant a suggestion in the mind of an unwilling creature with an attitude of indifferent or better after 1 minute of continuous, calm interaction with that creature, but the DC is 10 higher.

Recall Memory: You can draw out forgotten memories from a willing subject. You spend 1 minute inducing a calming, trance-like state in the subject, after which you attempt a Diplomacy check. If you succeed at the check, the hypnotized creature can reroll any previously failed Intelligence or Knowledge check to recall the forgotten information with a +4 bonus. The information must be something the subject once knew or was exposed to.

Action: Hypnotism takes 1 minute of calm interaction.

Try Again: Yes. You can try to hypnotize the same creature more than once, but only once per day.

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Read Aura: Your psychic sensitivity allows you to read the psychic and magical auras of creatures and objects.

Check: Once per day, you can examine the natural aura of a creature or object to discern the subject’s alignment, emotions, health, or magic. This requires 10 minutes of concentration, after which you attempt a Perception check. Each time, you must pick one of four auras to read: alignment, emotion, health, or magic. The result of the check applies only to the selected aura. You must be within 30 feet of the subject at all times during the reading. Objects typically have only magic auras, though some also have alignment auras (and intelligent items have emotion auras). You can still attempt to detect a type of aura an object doesn’t have, but you get no results. The DC varies depending on the aura, as shown on the table.

Read Alignment Aura: You attempt to read the alignment aura, learning the alignment and its strength. An alignment aura’s strength depends on the creature’s Hit Dice or item’s caster level, as noted in the description of the detect evil spell.

Read Emotion Aura: The colors within the target’s aura reveal its emotional state. If successful, you learn the target’s disposition and its attitude toward any creatures within 30 feet of it. For a number of rounds equal to the amount by which you exceeded the skill check’s DC, you gain a +2 circumstance bonus on Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate, and Sense Motive checks against the target.

Read Health Aura: Viewing the flow of vital force, you assess a creature’s physical condition. You learn if the creature is unharmed or wounded, if it is poisoned or diseased, and whether it is affected by any of the following conditions: confused, disabled, dying, nauseated, panicked, staggered, stunned, and unconscious. You also learn the total number of points available in its ki pool, grit pool, or similar resource.

Read Magic Aura: You attempt to determine the number and power of all magical auras on a target creature or object (see detect magic to determine a magic aura’s power). If the check is successful, you can attempt Knowledge (arcana) or Spellcraft checks to determine the school or identify properties of a magic item, as normal. If the item is affected by magic aura or a similar spell, you can realize this and determine the actual properties of the item if your check result exceeds the DC by 5 or more. If the spell is of a higher level (such as aura alteration), increase this threshold DC by 2 for every spell level beyond 1st.

Task DC
Read alignment aura 15 + creature’s HD or item’s caster level
Read emotion aura 20 + creature’s HD or item’s caster level†
Read health aura 15 + creature’s HD
Read magic aura 20 + creature’s HD or item’s caster level
† Intelligent items only.

Action: Reading an aura requires 10 minutes of study.

Try Again: Yes. You can read a creature or object’s aura more than once, whether you read the same aura or a different one. You can still attempt only one skill check to read an aura per day.

Yau Lie was born in the brutal land of Shenmen, the Cursed Land of Spiders and Ghosts. Lie’s mother was a consort of a jiang-shi serving in the court of the witch-queen Lady Lang Loi who was unhappy with her unfortunate lot in life. Being a consort was better than being a slave, but the cold, chi-feeding embrace of her husband left her frequently exhausted, and she died when Lie was still young. And yet Lie was loved after a fashion, raised to inherit his father’s role as a diplomat. The nation of Shenmen had designs on its neighbors, after all.

Lie was raised to believe that he was special: better than the mere human chattel that served at the pleasure of the denizens of Yin-Sichasi. He received an excellent education, learning how to fight, how to speak, and how to leverage knowledge to keep people under his thumb. And then he was sent out to hunt. Runaways, rogue do-gooder adventurers, Pathfinders, and any other creature of interest to the state of Shenmen: he sought them all out per his father’s whims and brought them back, dead or alive.

On one such hunting trip, he was sent to track down an insidious ahmuuth named Xiu who had been making herself a nuisance throughout the kingdom, stoking discontent and helping mortals slay their monstrous overlords. Lie found Xiu in the burnt-out husk of an old church of Pharasma, ministering to various humans. They strove to do battle and, through the combined might of the ahmuuth and the brave humans gathered there, Lie was subdued. He told them to kill him; he could not abide the shame of defeat, and if they let him live he would hunt them down again and see their heads brought back to his father. But Xiu saw in Lie a possible convert. Xiu ensured that the humans in her charge were safe, and then trapped Lie in a mechanism that he did not fully understand.

Once trapped, Xiu engaged Lie in a series of philosophical discussions on the nature of existence, justice, and fate. These discussions lasted a thousand and one days until Lie found that he finally agreed with Xiu. Under her auspices, Lie returned to Yin-Sichasi and confronted his father in one-on-one combat. Armed with the blessings of his new psychopomp handler, Lie slew his father and finally took control of his own life. He fled Shenmen for one of its nearest neighbors, the Taldan colony of Amanandar. From there his travels took him across the many nations of Tian Xia, where he had many other adventures, though those are tales for another time.

Lie eventually established himself in Goka as a reliable man for recovering stolen artifacts. He still found himself targeted by representatives of Shenmen no matter where he traveled across Tian Xia, and so he began looking for work elsewhere on Golarion where his father’s old coworkers would have a harder time tracking him down. Leveraging his knowledge and reputation as he had been taught, he learned of the distant Avistani land of Ustalav, a place rife with the sorts of monsters that he had been raised with.

Yau Lie is a ru-shi dhampir, born to a Tian-Shu woman and a jiang-shi man. He has traditional Tian-Shu features, but his skin has a more grayish pallor, and his eyes are such a pale blue as to be nearly white. His black hair is tied in a top knot, with a sweep coming down the front and covering the right side of his face. He wields an enormous polearm with a four-foot long blade: a gift from a Hellknight of the Order of the Pike, living in exile Amanandar, after helping him vanquish a Shoggti making trouble in nearby Tianjing. He balances this beautiful weapon expertly against a darkwood shield carved from a tree in the Forest of Spirits: a gift from a Kami whose forest he helped protect from the rampages of a young forest dragon. He is protected by an O-Yoroi that he received as a gift from an exiled samurai in Shokuro, whom he rescued from the clutches of an a nogitsune oni that had infiltrated the old warrior’s order. (It’s full-plate, but I’m flavoring it as samurai armor.) On this set of armor, he has carved the symbol of the psycopomp usher he serves: The Pale Horse, appropriately a former daemonic demigod who sought a measure of order and redemption after a long existence of damning souls. And finally, he wears his father’s old black and red robe, which he has recently discovered seems to contain a talkative fragment of his father’s soul. (Approximate image.)